‘Black Panther’ Is Off The Charts

The 'lower end' of its total box office? $1 billion.

Black Panther is the highest-grossing February film of all-time in North America — with a little life left in the month.

That’s figuring into a “lower-end” estimate of $1 billion in total global box office returns. A “more moderate” estimate is a medium of $1.08 billion — the amount estimated by Forbes.

“If my estimates wind up correct, then ‘Black Panther’ will top ‘The Dark Knight’ to become the sixth all-time highest-grossing superhero movie, and at least the number 32 all-time highest-grossing picture of any genre,” wrote contributor, Mark Hughes.

Grossing $112 million from 4,020 theaters since it’s release, its second weekend was the best all-time behind only the return of Star Wars just over two years ago in The Force Awakens. Its domestic revenue is $404 million, according to completed returns.

The film from Disney and Marvel saw one of its smallest drops ever for a superhero movie in its second weekend, besides being among the most diminutive for a film that has an opening weekend of more than $200 million. It fell 45 percent, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Also thanks to Black Panther, domestic revenue year-to-date is amazingly up 12.5 percent over the same span of time in 2017. THR reported that the count had been behind by more than one percent two weeks ago, according to comScore.

Disney said that the film notched the largest three-day weekend ever in West Africa this past weekend, besides nearly setting records in South Africa, according to THR.

In North America, Black Panther tied with 2015’s Jurassic World in hitting $400 million quicker than any film in history other than The Force Awakens. It also became the fourth movie to surpass $100 million in its second weekend — and the second-biggest market, China, hasn’t opened yet, according to Bloomberg.

“The movie continues to play ahead of our modeling,” Disney’s film distribution head, Dave Hollis, told THR. “It has become a cultural phenomenon. This is a movie audiences were hoping for, and that delivered beyond expectations.”

In 2008 The Dark Knight destroyed the opening weekend Box Office record. 10 years later and Black Panther is making $40 million more than BATMAN. Like how many people who aren’t into comics even knew about Black Panther before Civil War in 2016?

In becoming the all-time North America February grosser, according to the Los Angeles Times, Black Panther beat out Deadpool and will likely become the third-highest-grossing Marvel Cinematic Universe film of all-time after it beats out Captain America: Civil War and Iron Man 3.

And the Hollywood Reporter thinks that it will become the number one superhero film of all time, unadjusted for inflation, beating not just Avengers: Age of Ultron ($459 million), but also The Avengers ($623 million).

“No other marquee superhero tentpole has played to such a diverse audience,” the Hollywood Reporter’s Pamela McClintock wrote.

The Force Awakens remains the largest hauler for second-weekend domestic returns, at $149 million, not considering inflation, according to THR.

Black Panther also set new weekday marks for a Marvel film and competed against three new movies this past weekend.

“The strong global reception is all the more notable because it’s Disney’s first superhero feature with a largely African-American cast and likely will put to rest notions that films with black casts don’t attract a broad audience,” Bloomberg’s Anousha Sakoui wrote. “The reception in U.S. cities has been huge, with places like Memphis seeing theater attendance up more than 80 percent on average.”